Apple's iPhone Marks 5 Years as Iconic Smartphone
The first iPhone hit shelves five years ago. The rest, is history.
June 28, 2012— -- intro: This is the fifth anniversary of the iPhone -- five years since it first appeared on Apple's shelves and, quickly, in people's pockets or bags. It's strange to think that in the not-so-distant past, we used our cellphones simply to make phone calls.
But since Apple released its game-changing product, over 200 million iPhones have been sold, revolutionizing people's expectations of mobile devices.
And since the introduction of Apple's App Store in 2008, over 30 billion apps have been downloaded. More than 650,000 different apps are available, according to Apple.
The iPhone has traveled to space, was named one of Time magazine's "All Time 100 Greatest and Most Influential Gadgets," and declared the "snapshot camera of today" by the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Today, the device is distributed through 230 different carriers in over 100 countries around the world.
Looking at iPhone from its not-so humble beginnings, it's difficult to imagine what we would have done without access to Google Maps, Angry Birds, iBooks, Fruit Ninja, Instagram, Facebook, Pandora, and FaceTime, at the flick of our fingers and in the palm of our hands.
quicklist: 2category: iPhone 1title: June 29, 2007: iPhone Debutsurl: media: 14659695text: And so it begins. The revolution of the smartphone (and the obsessive, franic buyers' need to have one) started with typical Apple fanfare.
Apple debuted the iPhone at the Macworld convention in January 2007, but in keeping with the company's traditional secrecy, it didn't announce the phone's public release date until June 3, 2007 -- remember the "Mmm, did someone say calamari" ad? The iPhone was then released in stores on June 29, 2007.
Lines snaked around Apple stores across the country as people waited for the phone.
Touted as "major breakthrough" in cellphone technology, the first iPhone combined Apple's immensely popular mp3 player, the iPod, with smartphone capabilities: surfing the Internet, checking email, playing movies, messaging friends and -- oh, yeah -- making phone calls. All that came in one sleek, lightweight package.
It made the smartphone wicked cool, but it only worked on AT&T's network.
Features included: a multitouch screen, up to 16 GB of storage, 620 MHz processor, 2-megapixel camera for still images, USB dock.
Debut price: $499 and $599 for 4 GB and 8 GB, respectively. The 16 GB model wasn't released until Feb. 5, 2008.
Status: Discontinued.
Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, told ABC News in a 2007 interview that his motivation to develop the iPhone wasn't to compete with other tech companies. He said it was the need for a fresher product, one that he would want to use daily.
"We just try to build products that we feel are really wonderful and that people might want," Jobs said at the time. "Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong, but I think we're going to hit a grand slam with this."
WATCH: 2007: The iPhone's Debut
quicklist: 3category: iPhone 2 title: July 11, 2008: iPhone 3Gurl: media: 14659707text: Within two weeks of the iPhone's 2007 debut, Apple sold 700,000 units. Within a year, the company had sold 6 million units.
The iPhone 3G, sometimes called the "iPhone 2," was released on July 11, 2008. With Apple having claimed the high ground in the comsumer cellphone market, once again a buying frenzy followed the announcement.
